{"id":7697,"date":"2010-10-05T01:03:42","date_gmt":"2010-10-05T08:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=7697"},"modified":"2010-10-18T07:58:13","modified_gmt":"2010-10-18T14:58:13","slug":"woyzeck-at-the-cameri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=7697","title":{"rendered":"Woyzeck at the Cameri"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Itay Tiran as Woyzeck at the Cameri\/Photo: Gerard Alon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Itay Tiran\u2019s directorial debut, Woyzeck, Georg B\u00fcchner\u2019s (1813 \u2013 1837) indictment of society has a contemporary feel, if it doesn\u2019t rattle the complacency of the audience (as seems to be Tiran\u2019s intention), at least it gets their attention.<\/p>\n

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Itay Tiran and Alon Dahan in Woyzeck\/Photo: Gerard Alon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The hopelessly impoverished Woyzeck is a soldier who is trying to earn more money by taking on any additional job \u2013 performing personal tasks for officers and volunteering for medical \u201cexperiments\u201d with a local doctor. His earnings go to Marie, his lover with whom he is raising a child. Pushed to the limits of his physical and psychological endurance, he discovers Marie having an affair with a drum major, and kills her. Yet B\u00fcchner\u2019s play, left unfinished at his death, has a story so simple it is almost a non-story. There isn\u2019t really any question of mystery or gradual build-up of suspense.<\/p>\n

To the extent that the play is an accusation, it is one that is argued not through proof, but through conveying a certain atmosphere and mood \u2013 and it is here that Tiran excels. He creates an environment of madness \u2013 playful and unnerving all at once. The play takes place in a gothic insane asylum that has seen better days, with two toilets, a bath complete with cherub spouting water, tiles falling off the greenish-gray walls and a giant hamster wheel.<\/p>\n

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The Doctor (Uri Ravitz) with Woyzeck (Tiran) in the background\/Photo: Gerard Alon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tiran\u2019s adaptation and direction situates the play between documentation and entertainment, opening with a quote from B\u00fcchner in a letter to his parents, saying, \u201cif there is something that can bring help in our time, it is violence. We know what to expect from our leaders\u2026because we were born and raised in a prison cell, we are not even aware that we are stuck in a pit, our hands and feet tied and our mouths bound shut.\u201d (my own loose translation from the Hebrew version heard last night) Then the entire cast in white straitjackets moves through the song \u201cMisery is the River of the World,\u201d with choreography in which Brecht meets Michael Jackson\u2019s Thriller.<\/p>\n

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Itay Tiran, Gil Weinberg, Alon Dahan, Noa Shabtay, Eran Mor\/Photo: Gerard Alon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tom Waits, poet laureate of hard times, with Kathleen Brennan wrote the songs to Robert Wilson\u2019s adaptation of Woyzeck, which premiered in Copenhagen in 2000. The songs (which are available on Wait\u2019s album Blood Money, 2002) as well as the text are translated by Dori Parnes – light, swift and sharp as a dagger. Tiran works effectively with the songs, sound and live music to create a sense of Woyzeck\u2019s external pressures and the collapse of his inner world.<\/p>\n

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Nadav Rubinstein, Oded Leopold, Eran Sarel, Uri Ravitz, Ruthie Asarsay\/Photo: Gerard Alon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The cast remains onstage throughout the performance, and it\u2019s hard to distinguish the soldiers from the madmen. Tiran is completely transformed (almost unrecognizable) as the subservient Woyzeck, literally shrinking into himself, overtaken by subtle tremors, caught between his two tormentors. Alon Dahan as the officer humiliates and mocks Woyzeck with maniac enthusiasm, all the while mumbling: I\u2019m a good man. The doctor, played by Uri Ravitz, looking a lot like Elvis, with his shock of stiff black hair, leather pants and long white fringes on his lab coat, smirks and flutters his eyes in orgasmic glee as he administers his \u201ctreatment\u201d to Woyzeck.<\/p>\n

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Itay Tiran as Woyzeck\/Photo: Gerard Alon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A strong ensemble performance, with Tiran\u2019s emphasis on movement and sound, creates a chilling emotional impact. Tom Wait\u2019s God may be \u201caway on business\u201d, but in this compelling yet grim version, the situation has only deteriorated and \u201cGod is on Vacation.\u201d<\/p>\n

AYELET DEKEL<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Itay Tiran\u2019s directorial debut, Woyzeck, Georg B\u00fcchner\u2019s (1813 \u2013 1837) indictment of society has a contemporary feel, if it doesn\u2019t rattle the complacency of the audience (as seems to be Tiran\u2019s intention), at least it gets their attention. The hopelessly impoverished Woyzeck is a soldier who is trying to earn more money by taking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}